Québec City, le 17 February 2026 — As the health and social services system continues to deteriorate and struggles to provide quality care and services, labour organizations active in the system are joining their voices during today’s lobbying day. They will meet opposition parties at the National Assembly to suggest effective solutions for a free, universal and public system.

Four major themes

Labour organizations will be meeting with a number of opposition MNAs to explain suggested solutions around four specific themes: decentralizing CLSCs and acknowledging their importance; home care; universal pharmacare; and digital sovereignty. “We’re worried about laws and policy orientations that have a direct impact on our members’ conditions of work and practice, and on the care and services provided to Quebecers,” said APTS 1^st vice-president Émilie Charbonneau, CSN vice-president David Bergeron-Cyr, CSQ secretary-treasurer Luc Beauregard, FSQ-CSQ president Déreck Cyr, FSSS-CSN president Réjean Leclerc, FP-CSN vice-president Marie-Michèle Doiron, FIQ vice-president Françoise Ramel, acting CPAS-CUPE president Sonia Bureau, SPGQ 3^rd vice-president Martin Trudel, and SQEES-FTQ president Sylvie Nelson. “We want this initiative to be constructive. Our organizations have been working together on a regular basis for almost three years. We represent a large number of health and social service workers employed in many different fields, and we’ve chosen to join forces so that we can pull in the same direction as we speak for our members and, in the final analysis, for patients as well.”

Changing the recipe

According to the labour organizations, successive reforms imposed on the health and social services system over the past decades have all ended in failure: none have provided Quebecers with better access to care and services. “As a provincial election looms and Québec experiences political instability, we believe this is the right time to remind MNAs that we need to try a new recipe. We can’t keep using the same ingredients year after year and expect to achieve anything different,” said the union spokespersons. “Listening to proposals from people at the heart of the system is literally the only way we can hope to turn things around.”

The labour organizations deplore the fact that neither citizens’ nor workers’ voices are currently being taken into consideration by the government. Priority must be given to delivery of care and services, to waiting lists, and to labour shortage problems. “We also need to address the increase in centralization that puts decision-making at a distance, the insufficiency of accountability mechanisms for those who make decisions, and the greater and greater room assigned to the private sector. We are deeply committed to our public system and this is why our organizations, today, are telling MNAs again how important it is to pay attention to solutions that might greatly improve it.”